Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, a popular movement demanding an immediate end to vaccine mandates and other restrictions on daily life has shaken the Canadian state to its core. Its calls have deeply resonated with members of settler-colonial society in which public health measures and other forms of collective solidarity are seen by some as an affront to individual freedom and an undue hindrance on capitalist enterprise. While the movement is now facing the brunt of a massive wave of state repression, from which it is unlikely to recover, the contradictions it has exposed are only set to get worse.
What appears to be a highly effective act of sabotage carried out by Indigenous land defenders: cue the conspiracy theorists…
And some aren’t even theorizing, they assert it as fact: it was the cops, it was CGL… Here’s a theory: the attack was carried out by Indigenous people who, in the cold dead of night, set out on a mission to sabotage the CGL pipeline.
They carried out an audacious and complex attack that I would imagine started with getting the security guards away from vehicles and buildings. At some point after the security guards had fled, blockades and counter-vehicle devices were put in place on the only road leading to the site, delaying police response probably by hours. In that time the warriors carried out millions of dollars in sabotage.
Considering all this, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this may just be what it appears to be: an attack carried out by Indigenous warriors.
I’ve seen people posting about a bomb attack the RCMP carried out in Alberta in the 1990s as proof of cops carrying out fake attacks. This bombing was part of the police investigation of Wiebo Ludwig and his campaign against the oil and gas industry. The action was intended to entrap Ludwig. With cooperation from the oil company, the police blew up an abandoned, unused shed. It was in no way a major act of sabotage, in contrast to what is now being reported in Wet’suwet’en territory. It was insignificant compared to the actual sabotage that was occurring and for which Ludwig was widely suspected… and for which there was a virtual media blackout by the oil companies and RCMP who did not want the practice of sabotage to spread.
One of the problems with this conspiracy mongering is that is undermines the effectiveness of this action. The more it spreads and festers the more people question if it was a genuine act of resistance or not. Who does this inspire? In whose interests are acts of Indigenous resistance diminished rather than promoted? I also believe this conspiracy mongering demoralizes those who carried out the action (and who are now being hunted by police).
Thinking Through the Threats and Opportunities as a Far-Right Initiative Gains Momentum
Opponents of vaccine mandates have established protest encampments in Ottawa and elsewhere around Canada, blockading several routes crossing the United States border. Far-right organizers and former police officers have prominent positions in this movement, and police have taken a relatively hands-off approach thus far; it appears likely that the model currently being tested in Canada will appear elsewhere around the world shortly. In the following extensive report, our correspondent in Montréal explores the sequence of events that led up to these developments, reviews the agendas of the various forces vying for control, and reflects on what we can do in a situation in which the far right has gained the initiative.
To preface this report, it is necessary to deal briefly with the question of whether the anti-mandate protests in Ottawa represent a movement for “freedom,” as the participants insist.
On October 25, 2021, officers of the New York City Police Department participated in shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge—where they famously kettled and arrested Occupy protesters almost precisely ten years earlier—to protest against a vaccine mandate for municipal employees. While we passionately believe that people must be free make their own medical decisions and determine their own risk tolerance, the police were effectively demanding the right to expose those they arrest to even greater medical risk. This is a particularly clear-cut case showing that the movement against vaccine mandates is not necessarily a movement against state control or in favor of medical autonomy.
An authentic movement for freedom and medical autonomy would oppose all the forces that compel workers to expose themselves to COVID-19 against their wishes—in other words, it would be explicitly anti-capitalist. Likewise, such a movement would support striking students intent on determining for themselves which risks they wish to take.
When anti-mandate protesters maintain that borders should be tightly controlled by passport checks, yet decry vaccine passports as “fascism”—when they complain about police checking for vaccine cards, but support police in arresting and imprisoning people by the million—when they object to the government placing limits on economic activity, but not to the vast economic disparities that force workers to face potentially lethal risks simply in order to pay rent—they are not taking a stand in favor of freedom so much as they are willfully changing the subject from the encroachments of state power as a whole to a few details of state policy. This is part of the process through which a spurious right-wing opposition functions to redirect rebellious impulses into ersatz movements that ultimately strengthen state institutions.
It is possible that a consistent movement opposing state control in favor of medical autonomy could serve as a space in which those who oppose vaccine passports could go through a process of political development. But for this to be possible, these movements would have to foster a systemic analysis of power, whereas in fact, they are dominated by right-wing elements intent on limiting their political horizons. Therefore, at the minimum, it is necessary to oppose and outflank the right-wing elements in these movements—which is the subject of the following text.
The paranoid fears concerning vaccination and the conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 concern entirely the issue of the loss of autonomy. They allegorically (and distortedly) project real economic and social experience onto the body. In this manner, they both express and repress the experience, just as dreams, and more generally, the language of the unconscious, do: it’s not, allegedly, that the small store owner or the small businessman has been crushed by large states’ economies of scale, but rather that there is a plan to control his/her brain, or his/her body, his or her reproductive capacities.
Because the anti-vaccine unconscious is, like every form of mass irrationalism, the exact opposite of what it believes it is—because, in other words, it is a deeply conformist way of thinking—it is also a particularly fertile ground for the development of forms of racism, among which the anti-semitic and the Sinophobic elements are predominant.
At the beginning of the pandemic the state claimed masks were futile, but this was due to shortage and the government’s refusal to regulate the free market to ease the pain of the pandemic. Once companies managed to catch up with demand, the narrative changed. Many people likely died unnecessarily as a result of this.
Wearing masks can help save lives, but it is not a political statement in and of itself as some seem to think. Wearing your mask is not meaningfully countering the death-cult voices on the openly right-wing side of this culture war, it is simply common decency. On a larger level, it serves the state’s agenda to be louder about wearing masks than about the failing medical infrastructure around the world, or how the global medical establishment only serves the rich. I cringe when I see a liberal wearing a mask as if it is a symbolic virtue signal for BLM and organic farming. Supporting masks, encouraging vaccines, and not wanting vulnerable demographics of people to die is something we may have in common with someone on the liberal side of this culture war– a culture war that has been fabricated by state media and the worst of the internet– but it does not mean we can align ourselves with the liberals.
As Omicron predictably swept the earth in light of a vaccine rollout hobbled by the interests of capitalists, the pandemic that has plagued our lives is showing signs that it may be here to stay. Denmark has already acknowledged this: taking into account its privileged vaccine status, the country has already dropped all covid restrictions. Hong Kong, a country with some of the toughest restrictions in the world, is struggling with the futility of their own covid mandates in light of Omicron and may wave the white flag soon. Still many are dying across the world, as many also die from cancer, heart disease, famine, and war– although capitalism seems to consider these the cost of doing business. So much has happened since March 2020 when this boring apocalypse began.
I am not excited to be writing another piece on covid, but it is a truly unprecedented event. Even beyond the scale of death it has caused, its ripple effects and political implications are essential to discuss, no matter if we’re all tired of it. The pandemic continues to dominate our lives despite a looming and ongoing climate catastrophe, a global refugee crisis, the hyper-resurgence of fascism, and an increasingly stratified world. The world will never be the same. As anarchists, however, we must also evaluate our own behavior to grow and strengthen our communities of resistance in light of the world to come.
You can read my last article regarding the anti-vax and anti-lockdown right-wing movements that seized on the fear of those overwhelmed by this unprecedented event. I do not subscribe to this rubbish thinking. I am vaccinated; the first time to help others, the second time to be able to travel and enter a damn bar. I find the narrative of much of the anti-vax and anti-lockdown movements to still be dominated by double standards, inconsistencies, and the heinous influences of right-wing and anti-Semitic opportunism, but governments pretending the pandemic is the fault of the unvaccinated doesn’t work on me, because I know who is to blame. Omicron is a direct result of vaccine companies blocking patent sharing and the capitalistic practices of the “first world.”
I am uninterested in playing into the games of the governments of the world, governments that have proven they exist solely to preserve the comforts of the wealthy and maintain the existing social order of misery for most of us. Covid has made this even more obvious. After the arguments of state-defenders that murders and rapists are inherent to humanity (rather than a result of poverty and a patriarchal society), plagues and unprecedented global events are probably the next things to be used to defend and rationalize the horrors of government. Covid has shown, however, that the government really serves no purpose apart from its own interests, and will cravenly blame those it rules over if it can not manage what it supposedly exists to manage.
I am pro-vaccine the same way I am pro-chemotherapy. Both are a method of dealing with a horrible thing produced by the same horrible society responsible for the problem’s creation. I am cautious and concerned about who I come in contact with because I realize that the excluded and exploited are more likely to be affected by this pandemic, but I also believe many are suffering through this pandemic beyond the medical element of covid itself. If you don’t see this, you probably have a comfortable job or secure existence, because for myself at least, I wonder if the stress from this plague is going to kill me before the plague does.
I encourage people to be vaccinated as well as take precautions to ‘stop the spread’; but the implications of mandatory vaccinations concern me. I am concerned consistently with every opportunity the state may see in the fear caused by the pandemic or generally confusing times; this new precedent of mandatory vaccination worries me as does every crazy-ass thing governments do when people are afraid. It is ok to say this because it is an anarchist position.
Being an anarchist means rejecting the theater of politics. I am part of a movement that in its most sincere form cannot be trapped by the culture wars fabricated to divide us, because such wars are fought on faith that the systems in play will determine who wins. I can never welcome the decisions of the state without questioning them. However, some of us, whether through fear of a never-before-experienced pandemic, or more sadly, the fear of judgment by the liberal establishment, have made these kinds of compromises in position and rhetoric.
In my last article I mostly attacked the right’s use of the pandemic to distract from broader issues such as the hyper-profiteering of the rich during the pandemic, state opportunism in repression and authoritarianism made possible during the pandemic, and rampant inconsistencies exposed by the pandemic when it comes to government regulation. At the same time, as we have learned from governments around the world, lockdowns cannot be a cut-and-dry debate, and the authoritarian opportunism the pandemic has allowed governments around the world is something we should have seen and challenged in the process of breaking away from right-wing counter-revolutionary analysis. We cannot fear the judgment of the liberal and left-wing establishments around the world that have blindly accepted government decisions and who attempt to smear anyone who challenges the government’s decisions as being in league with white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists.
We are anarchists, not a political party looking to appease those whose analysis and ideas only exist within the framework of the existing power structures. We are anarchists meaning we are anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-so on, and so on, because our defining characteristic is being opposed to all facets of domination and exploitation.
Blind support of lockdowns is inherently classist, and not consistent with an anti-authoritarian position. I don’t like to use the term classist, because the mainstream use of this word tends to focus on incidents of class bigotry rather than class society as a whole, and is directed towards achieving “class peace,” rather than pushing for the elimination of class society. With that said, and in order to confront a specific tendency, realizing it or not, there were some fairly offensive classist approaches and tendencies coming from those fetishizing the state’s pandemic procedures.
Take for example people staying at home and posting TikTok videos of fusion meals (prepared magically), pompously letting everyone know they were staying in to help others without acknowledging that this is only possible on the backs of cooks, delivery workers etc. unable to do the same. It’s almost in line with the disrespect shown to workers by the bosses and fascists who wish to challenge the existence of the pandemic sheerly to preserve their sacred free market.
It assumes that others can get through even a week of not working without financial aid, while millions of migrant workers across the world, documented and undocumented, have not been eligible for the emergency pandemic financial resolutions or stimulus packages made by nation-stations and banks.
It ignores the labor and suffering that is necessary for such a meal to be made during these times– the “heroic essential worker” praise at the beginning of the pandemic was temporary and conditional. It reflects the worst of the liberal establishment, both in the USA and copy-cat centrist movements around the world.
Even the liberal establishment’s distasteful promotion of the vaccine as a moral choice, despite the majority of the world still waiting for any access to it, continues this classism. From early on, Americans and eventually Europeans were flaunting their vaccine status as the rest of the world was beseeching the WTO to make generic versions because they couldn’t afford Big Pharma’s price tag. You saw many declaring that the pandemic will soon be over because “we did it,” despite “we” not including much of humanity!
Now, as the western world begins to acknowledge that its approach to the crisis failed, recognition of the possibilities of “a permanent pandemic” only takes into account the conditions faced in the West, not the increases in deaths and looming variants that will continue to spread in the so-called third world, most of which is still waiting on the first world to share patents or non-expired vaccine surpluses.
The inconsistencies and mismanagement of the pandemic shine a light on the inherent flaws of the state. Unfortunately, giving too much consideration to the coercive talking points of the liberal establishment prevents us from countering the fascists who have dominated the narrative around covid. That is why we must find a balance, never allowing ourselves to place faith in the mandates of the state or expect the state to share the interests of anarchists with regards to managing the pandemic.
Drawing lines takes courage, especially on sensitive subjects, but as anarchists we are familiar with controversial approaches. Many who claimed to be interested in saving lives in the USA are now silent as Biden sends people back to work, obeying the demands of the bosses and capitalism. It’s a decision followed by countries around the world due to the pressures covid mandates have put on air travel, the transfer of goods, etc. Saving lives will always come second to saving capitalism on both the left and right side of the power games, no matter if one side minces their words or is willing to budge a bit.
Many who couldn’t “hunker down” and had their livelihoods sacrificed by state mandates are now turning to the right. As I write, truckers are blocking borders and cities in Canada and the USA over vaccine mandates. Blocked borders and occupied cities are typically something I would be excited about, but police and state forces haven’t obliterated these truckers the way they have indigenous land blockades and occupations against pipelines in Canada. The trucker protest crowds are generally of the included, not the excluded. They don’t challenge the broader system of capitalism, and are a generally confusing phenomenon for the status quo since they resemble its base. The convoys in Canada and the USA are quite troubling in light of the political associations and motivations of their founders. Solidarity blockades are also catching on in France, New Zealand, and more countries around the world. We are in conflict with the broader conspiracy theories and fascistic narratives that have helped to form these blockades, but we must counter them on our terms without resembling the voices of the liberal establishment. An excerpt from a recent on-the-ground review of the convoy in Ottawa and some of the liberal counter-protesters complaining against it helps paint a real-life example of why we need to challenge ourselves to counter these fascist events from an anarchist position that has no consideration for liberal approaches:
In the afternoon we check out a counter-demonstration organized primarily, it seems, by residents of downtown Ottawa who are sick of the noise, traffic, and acts of hateful speech, harassment and bullying on the part of some of the protestors. Countering the trucker protest before it becomes a full-blown neo-fascist revolutionary movement is so, so important but I honestly felt zero affinity with this counter-protest in particular. Most of the signs were either calling for more police, complaining about inconveniences like sound and traffic, or making fun of the demonstrators for being unvaccinated and/or stupid. “Honk if you failed civics,” “Self-driving trucks can’t spread covid,” “Ottawa police act now,” “Make Ottawa boring again.” A lady with a wordy sign about how vaccine mandates save lives mistakes me for a member of convoy protest and chastises me for apparently being illiterate, “Did it take you a few minutes to read that one, honey?” I have a graduate degree and no business being this personally offended but I feel a surge of rage at downtown liberal elites who think the problem is that these people just didn’t go to school long enough. We leave before it’s over, just as some of the protestors are engaged in a verbal standoff – antis chanting “Go home dipshits” while convoy protestors chant back “We still love you! Love! Love!” and the police form a stronger line between the two crowds.
The emphasis on appropriate and educated semantics and aesthetics that has invaded anarchist movements for years tends to come out of privileged university circles where issues are discussed instead of systems. As a result, we are discovering people on the fringes of our movements who feel connected not by experience and discontent but rather by a shallow connection of superficial identity. While fascists of all backgrounds deserve not a millimeter of space, we should admit allowing liberal mindsets “within” anarchy is a potential reason so many continue to get recruited by the right without even knowing it. Out of fear of resembling the right, we are allowing ourselves to be censored by the liberal establishment.
There are increasing riots worldwide related to lockdown restrictions. In the Netherlands for example, (https://itsgoingdown.org/reflections-and-report-on-the-nov-19-riots-in-rotterdam-nl/) on two occasions since the pandemic began there was some of the most intense rioting the Netherlands has seen in its modern history, mostly by unemployed and marginalized youth struggling in the most unequal country in the European Union. Many liberals, leftists, and even some anarchists dismissed these riots solely due to the ugly spark that may have helped trigger them.
On the days these riots happened, there were disgusting protests. The worst of the worst coming together: new agers, religious fundamentalists, right-wing politicians and neo-nazi/fascists protesting peacefully in their grossly white parades against the vaccines and lockdown mandates. Maybe some of the hooligans stuck around for the riots that followed, but those attending the pre-riot protests events are generally of the included, white, and privileged in the Netherlands, and could be seen denouncing the “hooligans” and “thugs” who came out when the sun set.
Lockdowns were the last straw for huge demographics of youth in the Netherlands who face constant racist violence by police and a second-class livelihood. Many pissed off, unemployed, and disenfranchised youth saw these events as an opportunity to manifest their rage. However, the liberal bourgeoisie and academic folks who dismissed these riots grouped fascists and politicians with unemployed youth of a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds simply because of the timing. How could some of us succumb to such a superficial and elitist approach to understanding a manifestations of social war that should be of interest to anarchists? It is a blurry time for humanity, myself included, but we have got to keep our analysis honed.
Anarchists consider looting the destruction of the sacred commodity, as well as reflecting poverty the looter faces. End of story, this is an anarchist response. However, those who tend to dismiss from the ivory towers of the academic and privileged world may not have the intellect or sincere desire for revolt to even appreciate such a thing. One may not manifest rage in the precisely opportune time or among the prettiest of circumstances, but it is our responsibility as anarchists to see these moments where such ruptures and tensions manifest and, regardless of the judgments of the liberal establishment, demonstrate our solidarity and support.
As anarchists we have to continue to assert our position unconditionally, heightening our voices and communicating our position clearly in order to make it clear to both sides of this culture war that we are not falling for the distractions. We want social war towards liberation.
We have learned a lot since March 2020. Just because we militantly reject the right’s death cult doesn’t mean as anarchists we should give in to the moderate right, centrist, or leftist establishments either. Whether civil wars in history, or Black Lives Matter, Occupy, the anti-globalization movement, or the pandemic of today, we hope the anarchist movement will always remember that “On the one hand there is the path that leads to the institutions, on the other, the way to the streets. These paths cannot co-exist.”
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two anarchists involved in the Punch Up Collective, a group which is currently mobilizing in Ottawa, the capitol city of so-called Canada, in the midst of an ongoing far-Right protest occupation made up of several hundred vehicles in the downtown area.
During our discussion we talk about the far-Right leadership of the protests, their history of organizing similar convoys and their involvement in a variety of racist and reactionary groups, and how the public, the police, and the State are all responding to the demonstrations, as law enforcement has been giving the convoy free reign of the streets and residents report hundreds of incidents of harassment, targeted violence, and racist intimidation. Meanwhile, anger is growing not only at the convoy, but at police and the failure of the State to respond, as people begin to self-organize and take action. We also look at how the Conservative Party is coming out in support of the convoy; hoping to use it as a wedge to gain more power and influence.
We also broadly cover how the Left has been caught off guard by these demonstrations: from how the current pandemic has negatively impacted organizing and support networks, to how the electoral Left has been slow to respond and terrified of the growing anger on the streets against the convoy. Finally, our guests map out current mutual aid programs and various forms of resistance and talk about the need to take the streets back from the far-Right and hold them. With more convoy protests being pushed for in the US and a counter-demonstration being called for in Ottawa this Saturday, it’s up to us to understand what is happening on the ground and prepare accordingly.
The second season of “The Whole Orchard” podcast will soon be available!
This year we’ll talk about anticarceral feminism, police forces on indigenous territories & transformative justice, amongst other subjects. Until then, you can listen to the five episodes of the 1st season by searching “Le verger au Complet” on your favorite podcast platform or by going to the web site.
We took the train downtown to avoid getting caught in the traffic jam of the protest itself. I’ve spent the ride alternating between preparing myself for what we’re about to see by mentally going over all of the things I should expect to see and hear in the next few hours at the convoy protest and distracting myself by contemplating whether or not I like Ottawa’s new transit system. I haven’t been to downtown Ottawa since before the pandemic. I know what stop we’re going to but it is unmistakeable anyway, a wave of people dressed in Canadian flag capes, maskless and bearing protest signs prepares to dismount just as we do. I remember using a similar tactic to find the right subway stop to get to Zucotti Park in 2011. There are so many surface-level similarities between here and there that I can’t help but feel a pang of the jealousy and perhaps even empathy with the protestors that I’ve been experiencing all week, watching their moment unfold and remembering moments where I have felt joy, camaraderie and anticipation of the kind that I imagine they are feeling this week.
The first thing I notice when we step out of the train is a tall white man wearing a Make America Great Again hat, waving the “Fuck Trudeau” flag that has been an important emblem of the right for the past few years. Obviously I hate his Trump hat but I am also reminded of how much I hate that the far right has taken a slogan as pure and good as “Fuck Trudeau” away from me, such that I can’t insult the man who is perhaps my least-favourite Prime Minister in Canadian history without first stating that I don’t support the far right. The second remarkable thing is two young families crossing paths as one walks toward the train and another away from it, the children jumping up and down as they walk and chanting “FREEDOM” so loud their voices are cracking. I can tell they’ve been doing this all day and the MAGA dude joins in with a boisterous “FREEDOM! FREEDOM!” and waves enthusiastically to the children.
I’ve been following this protest online all week and while I know online is where a lot of the protestors’ banter happens I also knew it would feel different to be among them in downtown Ottawa. I wanted to see it for myself and get a sense of the “vibe,” as well as guage how obvious the presence of the far-right movement that I know spearheaded these demonstrations is. I’m here as an observer, not trying to fully blend in or infiltrate them in any way but also not provoking them. Obviously I can’t get much from being there for one day, and I don’t pretend or hope to be an expert on the freedom convoys, but I did hope that seeing it in person would help me formulate an opinion about it in a way that social media alone can’t do.
There are a lot of flags and signs here representing various wingnut, nationalist, and right-wing causes, but the two most widely-shared symbols of this movement are clearly the Canadian flag and the absence of a face mask. The red and white is everywhere and many of the protestors have taken to draping themselves in it, parading around with a flowing maple-leaf cape. I don’t really get it when the Canadian state is ostensibly the thing they’re fighting but then again I never really “get” Canadian nationalism and this is nothing new – the same plethora of Canadian flags was the most common symbol at two important predecessors of this movement, the populist, Islamophobic “patriot movement” that emerged in opposition to Bill M-103 and the oil-and-gas-funded “Yellow Vests Canada movement.
The lack of face mask is a striking symbol that they all share and many of them have taken it beyond the protest, defiantly refusing to put their masks back on when they get onto public transit or enter the few businesses that remain open downtown. I’m not wearing one either and that’s all it seems to take to blend into this crowd. On the train I imagine they find each other this way, sharing conspiratorial glances with others of their newfound community who have also woken up from the conformist, pro-restrictions stupor they imagine the rest of us to be in. In the streets I’ve heard of numerous passersby and counterprotestors being yelled at for wearing theirs, and I’m not at all surprised.
I know there is racism underlying this, because I know their organizers are rooted in the more overtly racist movements that paved the way for this one, but I don’t think a naive passerby would necessarily notice it unless they happened to be in the right place at the right time. I have heard of people of colour being harassed by members of the convoy protest but that is definitely not most of their main activity most of the time and I don’t see a single sign about immigration, race or colonialism the whole time I’m there. I did notice two overtly anti-semitic signs, mostly of the text-heavy “list of conspiracies” variety that I’ve also seen on conspiracy theorists at broad-based left-wing protests in the past. There are a number of right-wing symbols dotted among the crowd, including a surprising number of “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, but no evidence of known Canadian far-right or neo-Nazi organizations out with their colours and symbols on display. Later on Twitter I notice somebody posted a picture of 6 members of the far-right patriot “Canada First” organization out in balaclavas in the streets that same day, but I didn’t happen to encounter them in person. I had expected to see more evidence of the overt fascists of Quebec and Canada recruiting but I couldn’t find it on Saturday. Maybe they’re hiding or maybe the crowd was just too big for me to find them. There are a lot of white people here but it’s definitely not a homogenous crowd, maybe not even a lot whiter than many of the environmental or other left-wing demonstrations I’ve been to in the past.
It was huge on Saturday. Police on Friday reported “about 350” protestors downtown on Friday and said nothing about numbers on Saturday but there were definitely thousands. The success of the trucks themselves as a space-claiming tactic for this group can not be understated. Every street in and out of the area around parliament is blocked by large vehicles, adorned with signs and flags and with protestors inside the cabs, honking the horns and smiling and waving at their crowd, many of whom are carrying “Thank You Truckers” signs and reserving their biggest shows of enthusiasm for encounters with the actual trucks. Even on days where their numbers are lower it is difficult to imagine what police or counter-protestor tactic would successfully undermine their control on the blocks surrounding parliament hill. There are a lot of them on and in front of the hill, where a sort of “main stage” has been set up on the back of a truck for speakers and announcements, but they have the whole neighbourhood. Several blocks away a park acts as a logistics hub, people are set up there with free food, firewood and other supplies. All of the streets in between and in fact much of downtown are actively part of the protest zone, filled with people yelling and chanting and the ubiquitous sound of truck horns that has drawn so much of the attention of local counter-protestors.
I passed by the main stage several time and every speaker I heard was an anti-vaccine advocate of some sort. It’s actually quite boring – blah blah ivermectin blah blah conspiracy blah blah toxic chemicals in your arm. I can’t tell if many of them are even listening to the speakers and in the streets away from the stage the only chant I hear is “Freedom!” so it’s very hard to tell if people there are all or mostly anti-vaxxers, but I would imagine a lot are. Down the road another loudspeaker blasts classic rock and an equally large group have created a dance party, waving their conspiracy-touting signs and Canadian flags and chanting “freedom” as they dance ecstatically together in the -25 degree weather. I’ve never seen our side get so successfully pumped up in such large numbers in such shitty weather.
I imagine that every conspiracy theorist I’ve ever encountered in the region is here, plus many more. I am used to seeing such people alone in a crowd but it is a bit disturbing to notice just how many of them there actually are now that they’re all in one place. There are signs and pamphlets everywhere about every wingnut conspiracy I’ve ever heard and even some that I haven’t – microchips in vaccines, THE JEWS, lizards, you name it. One sign tells me that a triad of weasels are working together to control the population with the vaccine chip: the Trudeau government, the mainstream media, and the Public Service Alliance of Canada. I hope somewhere out there a PSAC member is proud to be elevated to such a high status. I had intended to talk to more people but literally every conversation I overheard was about a known conspiracy – 3 guys behind me talking about 5G and China, a woman explaining The Great Reset to her school-aged children, a Francophone father telling his kids that masks are bad for their lungs. At the end of the day on the bus home I psych myself up to ask two protestors behind me to explain their movement to me, only to give up when I hear them whispering to each other about how much more needs to be exposed about chemtrails. I am struck by an obvious point that I hadn’t really contemplated before, that a lot of very normal-looking people with families, jobs and nice smiles are in fact followers of some of the conspiracies I think of as the most irrational and impossible to believe. I assume this has increased a lot since the pandemic but I can’t prove it.
I suspect a lot of the growth of this movement is happening among people who did not show up and would not have shown up for right-wing movements of the past but are simply genuinely tired of Covid restrictions. At one point I saw a group of children with cute signs bearing the outline of a truck filled with lists of the things they’ve missed since 2020 – soccer, seeing my friends, smiling at my grandmother, choir practice. My heart sinks as I imagine what worldviews these kids are encountering at what may well be many of their first protest. I empathize so hard with their desire to engage in normal, playful, collective activity after two years of pretending to be satisfied with zoom calls, masked conversations and freezing-cold outdoor meetups. I hate that so much of the left acts as if these concerns are not even a thing, telling people that if they care at all about vulnerable, elderly and disabled people they must simply suck it up and get on with it. One sign reads “This is existence, I want to live.” Me too, man, 100%. If only it were true what the theorists of this movement say, that actually Covid is only a cold, the government has inflated the death toll and all we need to do to find an end to the pandemic is take the red pill, pull of our masks and dance in the streets again. If I squint really hard I can almost see what they’re seeing, they’ve been locked inside for so long and the truckers are the first with the courage to actually speak up and say enough is enough, we need to go out there. If it weren’t for the right-wing racists directing the movement, not to mention the millions of actual deaths due to Covid-19 that no amount of good vibes and lies will prevent, it would make a lot of sense.
In the afternoon we check out a counter-demonstration organized primarily, it seems, by residents of downtown Ottawa who are sick of noise, traffic, and acts of hateful speech, harassment and bullying on the part of some of the protestors. Countering the trucker protest before it becomes a full-blown neo-fascist revolutionary movement is so, so important but I honestly felt zero affinity with this counter-protest in particular. Most of the signs were either calling for more police, complaining about inconveniences like sound and traffic, or making fun of the demonstrators for being unvaccinated and/or stupid. “Honk if you failed civics,” “Self-driving trucks can’t spread covid,” “Ottawa police act now,” “Make Ottawa boring again.” A lady with a wordy sign about how vaccine mandates save lives mistakes me for a member of convoy protest and chastises me for apparently being illiterate, “Did it take you a few minutes to read that one, honey?” I have a graduate degree and no business being this personally offended but I feel a surge of rage at downtown liberal elites who think the problem is that these people just didn’t go to school long enough. We leave before it’s over, just as some of the protestors are engaged in a verbal standoff – antis chanting “Go home dipshits” while convoy protestors chant back “We still love you! Love! Love!” and the police form a stronger line between the two crowds.
I think the trucker convoy is a protest. I disagree with those who say it is a siege, an insurrection or any other overblown term, and think those ideas are coming mainly from Ottawans outraged that someone could be this loud and this annoying for this long. I would absolutely organize and participate in a demonstration exactly this loud and annoying if it were for a different cause organized by different people, so I don’t really see any merit in those concerns and definitely don’t think that being very noisy or very annoying somehow makes this more than a protest. There have always been liberals calling us terrorists too when we take up space, or claiming that our airhorns are weapons and they’re under attack by our refusal to leave. It is an “occupation,” in the sense that the Occupy Movement was an occupation, ie it seeks to take up space as a protest tactic and seeks to create a container for like-minded people to come together, encampment style. Like many protest movements there are revolutionary elements within it that would like to see it escalate into something much more. That could happen – it is a really big and successful protest and a lot of the people there seem very inspired and committed. But it hasn’t happened yet. It should be stopped before it does that, ideally by grassroots resistance and not by police repression.
I have a lot of disjointed thoughts about this and could probably write several long essays about it if I had the time and faith in my own understanding and authority to do so. For today I’m going to be content with sharing my experience and some broad themes of questioning that I’d like to follow up on, in no particular order:
(1) Freedom is a very real and very important goal, and Covid restrictions genuinely constrain people, often in ways that are genuinely unethical. I do not support vaccine mandates, even though I do support encouraging people to get vaccinated in other, less coercive ways. Unlike the right, we know that real freedom will only be attained collectively, that it isn’t about simple individual choice. Refusing to wear a mask when a friend or neighbour asks you to do so for their own health is a busted understanding of freedom. But I do think the world has become even less free since the pandemic, that governments have gained new kinds of powers and new forms of surveillance. In Canada I think they’re also enjoying a new level of deafeatism, pacification and obedience displayed by a large segment of the population who can’t imagine a solution to the problem of Covid-19 that is any more complex than simply doing whatever the government says to do and shaming anyone who doesn’t.
(2) People are always going to believe things that are false. Conspiracy theories are annoying as hell but they provide easy answers and are super compelling. Nobody is going to feel compelled by being called an idiot. We need better ways to counter misinformation than petty bullying and overstated blame.
(3) I have no doubt that if this protest became a revolutionary movement it would absolutely be a fascist one. The elements of it that want to depose the Prime Minister would install someone much, much worse. There is no hope for common cause with this thing but we need to find creative, probably new ways to counter it. It does not make sense to treat these protesters as potential comrades (at least as a group), but it will not work to treat them as we have treated known, overt neo-Nazis either. What are some ways we can counter this movement that go beyond (but might still include) shaming its potential recruits and threatening their events with physical violence?
(4) What is up with the police here, actually? On the one hand it’s true they have not tried much to remove the protestors (although it looks like this might change in the next few days), and the success and good vibes of the protest is in part the result of a near-total lack of repression, partly due to the whiteness and politics of the protestors. On the other, the Ottawa Police are probably not lying when they say they don’t have the training or resources to move this thing. It’s not because there are too many protestors, it’s because of their tactics, particularly the trucks. How is it possible that there is no plan to prevent the police from losing control of PARLIAMENT HILL this easily? What are the things we can learn from this and what new understandings of the Canadian state should this give us?
(5) What do we want to do about Covid now that is clear that vaccines are a tool and not an end? How will we cautiously resume riskier activities while still showing care, empathy and protection to those vulnerable to the virus? Anti-vaxxers are wrong about vaccines for sure but they are not the whole (or even the main) problem and we can not escape the fact that the virus is likely here to stay. If the virus never ends we will have to dance in the streets together one day again anyway. It does not make sense to tell everyone to simply endure a shittier life indefinitely. The freedom that many of the convoy people are talking about is a boring version of freedom because many of them do not care at all about people dying of Covid, but those of us who do care will still have to find ways to live.
Last Sunday, January 30th, we were enraged and deeply saddened to learn of yet another death at the Laval immigration detention center.
We do not have any information about the person who lost their life while in custody of the Canadian Border Services Agency. All we know is that they were a migrant detained for administrative purposes: ie. for not having papers. This person should never have been detained in the first place, and now they are gone. No one should ever be detained.
It’s a shocking death that comes on the heels of another tragedy at the border: last week, a family froze to death while attempting to cross in Manitoba. Borders kill. CBSA negligence kills.
This most recent death is not the first to occur in the detention centers managed by CBSA and their affiliate companies (The Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, GardaWorld) contracted to provide private “security.” Over the past twenty years, more than fifteen people have had their lives stolen in CBSA custody, some by suicide and others by physical restraint and atrocious neglect. CBSA lets those in its custody die by refusing to provide attention, medical or otherwise. These deaths are entirely preventable. This most recent loss adds to the growing list of those who have lost their lives to CBSA over the past twenty years:
Bolante Idowu Alo Abdurahman Ibrahim Hassan Fransisco Javier Roméro Astorga Melkioro Gahung Jan Szamko Lucia Vega Jimenez Joseph Fernandes Kevon O’Brien Phillip Unidentified man Shawn Dwight Cole Unidentified man Joseph Dunn Unidentified person Sheik Kudrath Prince Maxamillion Akamai
It is only in the past few years that CBSA has been required to publicly announce each death that occurs in its custody. The circumstances of these deaths remain opaque as CBSA invokes the “right to privacy” to avoid disclosing its abusive practices. As usual, a police force will head the investigation because there is no independent entity that monitors CBSA. As usual, police will investigate the work of other police and meanwhile, the detention center remains impenetrable, hidden from the public who already know so little about the neglect, abuse and lack of care taking place inside. The courageousness of the detainees who held hunger strikes in 2020 and 2021 has shed light on the worsening conditions in Laval since the start of the pandemic.
The construction of a new prison in Laval in 2018 and the rise in funding to allegedly “humanize” the immigration detention system changes nothing. The fact that there are trees in the visitor parking lot, a basketball court and a playground in the fenced yard (concealed from view) change absolutely nothing: these places are prisons for migrants, for families and children. Detention is not an exceptional measure, but rather a fundamental part of the repressive matrix that is the Canadian immigration system. It serves to facilitate deportation, and to punish migrants for leaving situations of poverty, violence and exploitation, which Canada is often involved in creating.
The consequences of these repressive immigration policies are numerous and lethal. No one should be forced to live on the margins, isolated and in fear of arrest and imprisonment. The practice of detention promotes nothing but exploitation by confining the most vulnerable people to an underground economy characterized by abusive and unsafe working conditions.
Enough is enough! The violence must end! Not one more death!
We call for open borders and the free movement of people seeking justice and dignity, meaning freedom to move, freedom to return, and the freedom to stay.
Stop the detentions, stop the deportations! We need a comprehensive, ongoing regularization program! No to prisons, status for all!!
This week’s discussion features an anarchist who is really into Mastodon. We talk about what’s wrong with corporate social media platforms, what we like and don’t like about spending time catching up online, and how Mastodon/the Fediverse feels different from hanging out on Instagram. We also get some tips for getting started on this alternative social media platform.
Comments Off on An Initiation to Non-Peaceful Action Seen from the Inside
Jan262022
Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info
We are a group of young activists that have been active for only a few years. The experience of participating in different environmental organizations made us realize the limits of these organizations with respect to the effectiveness of our struggles. So in recent months, we decided that we wanted to try to inflict economic damage on fossil fuel companies through our actions. This decision led to much in the way of questions, preparation, reflections and ideas. These things are what we would like to discuss in this text.
It began with many of us acknowledging something: the environmental struggle has hit a wall. We repeat actions of the same intensity (whether we’re 20,000 or 500,000 in the streets) for a cause that is becoming radically more urgent. We complain that the government doesn’t listen, but we choose to stay in a passive position, always in a posture of making demands while more than enough evidence has accumulated to disillusion us. Wishing to be lucid about the effectiveness of our methods as much as what little room for manoeuvre we have left, we felt the necessity to do more and to do better. These reflections emerged as well following readings like “How to Sabotage a Pipeline” by Andreas Malm, texts on the history of the Earth First movement (“Down with Empire! Up with Spring!“), and written reflections from ZADs and from current environmentalist groups.
Some may tell us that these reflections needed to come sooner. They may be right. Still, it is absurd to ask an activist to move from inaction to the most radical form of action. Every activist accumulates experiences that lead them to reflect on the effectiveness of their actions. Each one of us may then evaluate what they can do, based on their desires and abilities.
So we started to think about what would be within reach for us and have a certain impact. The first obvious obstacle that presents itself is the law. We believe that right now, everyone must reflect on their capacity and will to break the law in order to have an impact. Accepting legal risk takes time, it’s a psychological process not to be ignored — being comfortable with the actions that follow all the more so. This taking of risks may throw into question some of our aspirations and make us face our privileges as well as what they may imply as responsibilities. Therefore we invite anyone with the will to intensify their political action to reflect on the legal risks they are ready to take. Ultimately, we see it as a necessity so as to have a greater impact. It’s a matter of finding a balance between risk and intended impact. We do not seek to get arrested “to get arrested” or in a perspective of civil disobedience with an audience. We no longer want to be in a position of making demands to those in power, we want to cause direct economic damage with the goal of forcing a prohibition of fossil fuels.
The second obstacle apparent is that of preparation. We weren’t prepared to take this kind of action, and information stays hidden (with reason). We had to delve into different sources ourselves to learn certain techniques, to have good legal protection, and to communicate with each other securely. All this preparation takes more time. However, if we wish to intensify our struggle, we must get off the beaten trail and try to learn on our own the best we can. Through this process, there will be experiments and mistakes, and we will not all become perfect activists overnight. This lack of preparation and knowledge must not be an impediment to the intensification of our actions, it only requires that we make the time to learn by ourselves and share our knowledge.
The third barrier that appears is that of our (in)experience related to our age and the network of who we know. We are part of a new generation of activists that was not around for some big dates of struggle in “Quebec”. This inexperience leads us to have less practice, but also less knowledge of activist structures and practices. This inexperience can also elicit distrust from older comrades who see us as naive or unable to act in view of an escalation of pressure tactics. This distrust has its reasons, but we still would have more to gain by uniting as much as possible and sharing knowledge that was erased with the dissolution of the ASSÉ and burnout. Not that we put aside the necessity of organizing in affinity groups to build trust and maintain security.
Lastly, the fourth barrier we face, one that we may feel inside us without sharing it, is an emotional barrier. Lowering your fears about actions you’re doing, facing confrontations with the police and their intimidation tactics (we recognize that for some people confronting the police is not a matter of choice), developing the courage needed to trust yourself on new paths that lie outside societal approval: all these things require emotional work that takes time, even more so as we may carry within us the image of the perfect revolutionary who is afraid of nothing, who fights the police without fear, maybe even with a smile, and we consider that it may be a question of nature. Whereas in our lives, we want to take care of each other, promote understanding of points of view and foster kindness, our organizing asks that we harden ourselves, face our fears, express our anger and take our legitimate place even if it means confronting the order of the world. This work on our nature and our emotions should be seen not as a barrier, but as an invitation to develop sharing circles to do this work together rather than alone. Ultimately, developing these qualities will allow us to live a life that is closer to our ideals and allow us to be happier.
Surmounting these barriers as much as possible, we carefully planned our action. The action aimed to damage gas stations in order to render them inoperable for several days. In the course of things, we had our challenges. One location ended up being surveilled, and another closed a few weeks before our action, rendering it useless. We nevertheless gained practical experience by which we faced our fears and learned lessons from our mistakes. It is necessary to begin acting, even if we are not perfect, even if we don’t know everything. What’s important is to organize as well as we can but above all to act, because all that stops us is essentially fear and a lack of time.
In conclusion, we believe it is necessary for the struggle to evolve toward a plurality of direct actions. Our goal in this text is to share that it is not necessary to know everything, that it’s normal for many obstacles to appear along the way, and that we can all autonomously gain the knowledge and reflections needed towards this end. Ecological struggles will mark the coming years. They are struggles that we have no choice but to win. We would like for the next people who organize in the context of the ecological crisis to not take the typical peaceful path. We also want to call for activists from previous generations to share their knowledge with us so that we can move forward together. However, we do not overlook the impact that repression had on some of our friends. We recognize the courage of the people who were or are in any way a part of struggles past and present.
